Baby foods in Britain are too sweet and promoted too early in the baby’s life, an expert claims today.
Parents are given the idea they should wean their babies at four months – when the child should still be on breast milk, according Dr Charlotte Wright, of Glasgow University Medical School.
Writing in the Archives of Disease in Childhood , Dr Wright reports setting out to identify the products available in Britain for helping to wean infants.
She compared the products with government advice, which suggests starting with cereals, vegetables and fruit at six months.
She found that 44% of products were aimed at infants from the age of four months.
And 65% of stand-alone products were sweet foods.
She concluded that ready-made savoury foods had about half as many nutrients per spoonful as would home-made weaning foods – although they matched on iron content.
Dr Wright warned: "Repeated exposure to foods during infancy promotes acceptance and preferences."
She said weaning food should increase energy and nutrient content in the diet – and yet the most common foods supplied no more energy than breast-milk.
She said: "While it is understandable that parents may choose to use these products early in the weaning process, health professionals should be aware that such food will not add to the nutrient density of a milk diet.”
Nutritional content of infant commercial weaning foods in the UK Archives of Disease in Childhood 10 September 2013;doi 10.1136/archdischild-2012-303386 [abstract]
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